Who should be included in Minnesota's school funding?

While public schools are largely funded through state and federal dollars, Minnesota provides funds and services that extend beyond public and charter schools to reach the roughly 72,000 students attending Minnesota’s 467 nonpublic schools.

These amenities like busing, student healthcare, counseling and textbooks, are seen as baselines for students that the state supplements even if students aren’t attending its public schools.

Questions of which programs should be included in that baseline — from school safety grants to federal tax credits — have been a common point of debate in the House this biennium.

“All kids should feel safe when they go to school,” Rep. Ben Bakeberg (R-Jordan) said in a February House Education Finance Committee meeting about a proposal that would open school safety grants to nonpublic schools.